Pension Plan Puppets and other great Leaf sites always worth a read

With the Leafs off for a couple of days, it seemed like the right time to give a shout-out to people and sites who do such outstanding work, "mainstream" or not, in Leafworld. It's fun to cast the net and mention some Leaf sites that provide either laughs, good commentary, unique analysis or just generally help  provide solid coverage about hockey and the Leafs—in good times and bad.

In no particular order, we have:

Maple Leaf Hot Stove— Alec, Mislav and their colleagues at Maple Leaf Hot Stove http://mapleleafshotstove.com/  provide a very polished web presence, including opinion pieces, player profiles, strong statistical analysis, game stories and more.  All worthwhile reading, every day.

We Want a Cup— Matteo and crew at http://www.wewantacup.com recently added a neat video component to the site, that already offers regular game and team analysis.  I recommend it highly. Just a really fine site.  Over time Matteo has added some talented writers to his "team" so those who go to the site can spend some time enjoying an assortment of "goodies".  Matteo tells me he is re-working the site to make it even more enjoyable for all.

Pension Plan Puppets— Has any Leaf fan anywhere in the world not been made aware of this site?  Chemmy and PPP (their "handles") ably control and oversee the massive flow of information the site offers (located at http://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/ ) with a host of excellent contributing writers, including 1967’ers.  The straws that stir the drink every day, however, are SkinnyFish, Bower Power, JP Nikota and of course Birky.  They cover the globe and make their own views quite clear, though they remain somewhat mysterious as to their real everyday identities.  Chemmy, PPP, SkinnyFish and Birky, in particular, I sort of see as some combination of Zorro (my all time favorite from the late 1950s TV show, because he was a “real” guy and helped the downtrodden), Batman, Superman, and perhaps either Spiderman or the Green Hornet.  You don’t know who they “really” are, but they do a lot of good (and in this case, keep you amused, as well…).

Jon at http://puckineh.com/ continue to crank out solid work on a regular basis.  You’re probably already a visitor there but if not, there is always a “good read” as we like to say, available for us.

I don’t think the guys at Bloge Salming have been publishing as often of late at http://www.blogesalming.com/ but they always provided great videos and so much creativity.  Perhaps someone has an update as to their current status.

Like Mirtle at the Globe, Down Goes Brown at the National Post is so well known, and has such a strong following, I don't think there is anything I can really add...

Leaf Nation Online http://leafsnationonline.wordpress.com/ is out there as well, along with OT Winner at http://otwinner.wordpress.com/

Another strong site is The Leafs Nation, located at  http://theleafsnation.com/

Many of you are likely already aware of Backhand Shelf, the hockey blog affiliated with The Score at  
http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/

I know there are others, like Preds on the Glass, which I always enjoy, but off the top of my head, that’s what came to mind.  By all means share sites that I may have neglected to mention here, and I will aim to include them in the future.

Thanks.